by Lowell J. Soike
Despite the immense body of literature about the American
Civil War and its causes, the nation’s western involvement in the approaching
conflict often gets short shrift. Slavery was the catalyst for fiery rhetoric
on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line and fiery conflicts on the western edges
of the nation. Driven by questions regarding the place of slavery in westward
expansion and by the increasing influence of evangelical Protestant faiths that
viewed the institution as inherently sinful, political debates about slavery
took on a radicalized, uncompromising fervor in states and territories west of
the Mississippi River.
Busy in the Cause explores the role of the Midwest in
shaping national politics concerning slavery in the years leading up to the
Civil War. In 1856 Iowa aided parties of abolitionists desperate to reach
Kansas Territory to vote against the expansion of slavery, and evangelical
Iowans assisted runaway slaves through Underground Railroad routes in Missouri,
Kansas, and Nebraska. Lowell J. Soike’s detailed and entertaining narrative
illuminates Iowa’s role in the stirring western events that formed the prelude
to the Civil War.
About the Author
Lowell J. Soike
is retired from the State Historical Society of Iowa, where he served as a
historian for thirty-six years. He is the author of Without Right Angles:
The Round Barns of Iowa and Norwegian-Americans and the Politics of Dissent,
1880–1924.
ISBN 978-0803271890, University of Nebraska Press, © 2014, Paperback,
306 pages, Photographs, End Notes, Appendix, & Index. $30.00. To purchase this book click HERE.
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